


Impasses and Allies

by completelyhopeless



Series: Queen and Hawkheart [26]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, F/M, Gen, the messed up relationship between the queen and lord hawkeye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 14:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3572561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Hawkeye reveals part of his reasons for allowing the queen to live and rule. This may be the start of an alliance.</p><p>Or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impasses and Allies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> This is a combination of two prompts and two thoughts. I intended to do this one for this series as soon as I saw it: _[Marvel Cinematic Universe, Natasha Romanoff/Clint Barton, I will not take from you / You will not owe / I will protect you from the fires below - "Who Will Save You Now" by Les Friction](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/600047.html?thread=83635439#t83635439)_
> 
> Instead, I couldn't finish the part past the conversation with Phil and May, mostly due to an uncooperative Hawkeye. I had two lines, I came back to them, and it probably does hit things sideways, that is the way I always seem to write, but I hope that's okay, as well as the second prompt that I added in.

* * *

“Does your friend suspect her or like her?”

Hawkeye gave the queen a look, appraising her. She did not flinch under scrutiny, did not move away or appear uncomfortable. She would not allow herself to falter under such a look, not even with him. Natalia was strong. She needed to be strong, as strength sustained. Weakness was as intolerable as it was unforgivable.

“I hardly know what goes on in Phillip's mind. What counsel he might give is not always what he believes—more often it is what is necessary, what must be said rather than what he wishes to say. He is an adviser. That is the nature of his role.”

She nodded, yet she found herself disagreeing with that statement. “You two converse differently. He is your friend. He speaks to you as no one else would dare. You are not the same as ordinary men. You are—”

“Do not seek to flatter me. Surely I am not that unique among the men you know, my queen,” Hawkeye said with what might have been a teasing tone in his words. She was not certain. It could also have been scorn. She found him more difficult to interpret than others.

“I would not flatter you, nor would I wish to. It is fact that you are the heir to the throne. That separates you from the others whether you want it to or not.” She saw an expression of disgust cross his face, and she would have pressed it if she felt like tormenting him. His sensitivity to his role as prince and heir was not something she was unaware of, but at present, she had other motives for conversing with him. Tormenting him was something that should wait until after she had what she wanted from him. She would not get answers from him that way, and she was tired of his silence. “Why is it that you have not stepped up to take the throne?”

“Why do you think?”

She shook her head. “I see no reason. You hate and distrust me. You know what passed between your brother and me. You tried to kill me once. Why allow me to rule when that right is yours?”

He did not answer at first, and some part of her wondered if he had an answer. She could not find one that satisfied her, but he was the one who knew. “Has Lady Virginia told you much of this land and its history?”

Natalia frowned, uncertain why that mattered at all. “Some.”

“Anything much to do with the lines of the kings?”

She nodded. That education was something the court felt she was due, that was even required of her as queen, and she had learned her lessons dutifully, knowing that she had no other option. She was there to get close to the king, to kill him, and she had done so by being every part the queen she was supposed to be. She knew the facts of the lineage, could recite it as would others within the kingdom.

“Did you notice anything about the behavior of the kings?”

She waited, wanting his answer more than any theory of her own.

“They start as good kings. Almost all of them. They said my father was one, long before my brother was born. When I was younger, my brother was the one to protect me. That all changed after he became king,” Hawkeye spoke without inflection, but he was still troubled by his admission. He was telling her much more than she would have thought or expected. He _did_ see a threat, but the one he saw was one from within—from him.

“You believe the throne is corrupted.”

He looked at her. “I would have thought you would accuse me of fearing it.”

“I have never known you to show fear before. Caution and paranoia, but not fear,” she told him, earning a smile for her words. “This corruption is within the royal lineage?”

“I do not know that one exists. Or if it does that it only affects males.” 

She tilted her head, studying him. “So it is not your intention to expose me to this corruption and allow it to take me instead?”

“I would be a fool to want that, knowing what I do about you,” he said, and she was the one to smile then. “Though you are not the only one with blood on your hands. I carry my own as well.”

“You might protect your kingdom by avoiding the throne if it were the sort to claim you,” she told him, “but you will not save it from the threats outside it. This would seem an impasse—if I rule, I bring in the threats from other lands, but if you do, you bring in the one from your own.”

He leaned against the wall. “Is that what you think I am doing? Avoiding threats?”

“Oh? Was it your intention to make one instead?” Natalia asked, moving in closer to him. “I do not fear your corruption. And you do not fear me.”

“We have always been at impasse.”

She shook her head. That had never been true. They held each other in balance, his skill against hers, always enough to counter what the other might do, neither giving or taking, but if what he suspected about the throne was true, then only together would they save the kingdom from the coming fire.

“We are counterweights,” she said, and he nodded in agreement until she continued, “we are allies.”

He stared at her, and she left him with a smile on her lips.

* * *

“I saw you with the woman from the boat,” Hawkeye said, aware of Phillip's presence behind him. The queen was gone, and that was something of a relief and yet not as much as he would have expected. “Do you like her?”

“Why is that the first thing you ask?” Phillip frowned. “I could have had any number of reasons for speaking to her, and few of them have any bearing on her being a woman and me being a man who likes women.”

Hawkeye smiled. “Yet everyone feels free to tease me about that very thing with the woman who killed my brother.”

“Yes, well, they are all rather expectant in that regard,” Phillip said. “The precedence exists, after all. It has not been altogether uncommon for such a thing to happen, nor should it be. The respective titles of king and queen are a matched set, and it is only your stubbornness that makes it so you do not have the one you deserve.”

“What do you mean?” Hawkeye demanded. “I do  _not_  have to marry the queen. Not now. Not ever.”

“Actually,” Phillip told him. “That  _is_  the law.”

“Do they want  _two_  dead kings?”

**Author's Note:**

> The second prompt was: _[any, any/any, arranged marriage](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/588339.html?thread=81884723#t81884723)_
> 
> Of course I thought of these two. I had that thought in the back of my head for a while.


End file.
